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Book Review: 'A Climate of Crisis' by Patrick Allitt

Before climate change, 'alarmists' and 'deniers' had it out over hazardous waste, acid rain, the ozone layer and rain forests.

By

James Huffman

April 23, 2014 7:06 p.m. ET

Climate change has been the dominant environmental concern of the 21st century. Public discussion of the topic is less an informed exchange of ideas than a strident debate pitting alarmists against deniers—at least that is how each side labels the other. Both are secure in the knowledge that truth, reason and the moral high ground undergird their positions.

And thus it has always been with environmental policy. There was a brief period of productive collaboration during the Johnson and Nixon administrations, but...